Bo-Peep’s Tears

Bo-Peep’s Tears

An installation made as a direct response to my grief following my brother’s death by suicide in October 2014; a pivotal piece of work for me as it signalled a complete change in my art practice.

It comprises at least 1500 crepe, tissue and organza flowers. I made each flower myself by cutting out and assembling 22,210 petals to brocade clad wire stems and embroidering approximately 3450 beads. The flowers were then bound to wire structures to create my ‘tears’. I began making the flowers to keep me motivated - I was unable to paint - and the repetitive nature of their making gave me comfort. Finally, a tiny room was transformed into a cloud filled sky, dripping with floral tears and flooded with sound. The whole process became intrinsically linked to my grieving.

Inspiration came from three sources: “The Girl Who Cried Flowers’ a story by Jane Yolen; an old photograph of my brother and me, dressed as Little Boy Blue and Bo-Peep in costumes, made by our mum almost entirely from crepe paper, and a painting I’d made of a Tiny Tears Doll.

Most of us find it difficult to communicate or share our grief, this is made harder when that grief is attached to the stigma surrounding suicide. Ironically it is the inability to share or express emotions that often lies at the root of many suicide deaths. By creating the installation I wanted to convey the discomfort of exposing the anguish of such complicated grief.

"Suicide is the howl that sucks out your breath and hollows out your insides in one jagged pull." - Julie Gray (I am Not Myself: A Year Grieving Suicide)

 Photography by Olivier Richomme